Can pre-K fix Dallas ISD’s problems?

There is no silver bullet for fixing public education. But reformers are convinced that quality pre-K is the closest thing to a silver bullet that currently exists.

Research indicates that what happens between birth and age 5 is crucial for brain development. If 5-year-olds are behind when they start kindergarten, studies show that they have a hard time catching up with their peers. By the time they reach third-grade, if they’re not reading at grade level, catching up will be harder and take longer because by third-grade, students should be done learning to read and need to be reading to learn.

One solution? Start earlier rather than trying (and failing) to catch students up later. A years-long push spanning both the Mike Miles and Mike Hinojosa administrations is working to enroll as many impoverished 4-year-olds and even 3-year-olds as possible into DISD pre-K programs.

“Pre-K puts students on a much stronger path. In Dallas ISD, we see that pre-K students consistently outperform their peers in third-grade reading,” Little says. “Roughly 2,000 more students met third-grade level standards last year because of pre-K.”

3,300

Low-income students enroll in DISD pre-K programs in 2013

6,900

Low-income 3- and 4-year-olds enroll in DISD pre-K in 2014, after Supt. Mike Miles hires Alan Cohen to fill a new position: executive director of Dallas ISD early childhood and community partnerships. (Derek Little is Cohen’s successor.)